


Take It Back

by anotherwinchesterfangirl



Series: Song Prompt Fics [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, F/M, Sam's memory box, The Impala - Freeform, post-Swan Song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7907581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherwinchesterfangirl/pseuds/anotherwinchesterfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months post Swan Song. Dean thought it would be easier by now.</p><p>For the song prompt "Past Perfect" by Louden Swain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take It Back

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [OxfordCommaLover](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordCommaLover)'s Louden Swain Writing Challenge. My prompt was [Past Perfect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iycwaJTdHo), from their album Eskimo. 
> 
> I cannot say thank you enough to my wonderful friend [take_ninetynine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/take_ninetynine) for not only helping me brainstorm this idea, but also for her fantastic beta skills and saving the day when I was stuck. <3

 

_It’s takin’ all I can muster_  
_Just to wake up all pale and flustered_  
_The cards been folded, I busted_  
_The plates are stacked and the shelves not dusted_

He wakes up clammy and cold with his brother’s name on his lips and a pain in his chest so sharp and big that it might overcome him. For a second, he doesn’t remember where he is. He swears that he can feel the dry grass of Stull Cemetery under his hands, but it’s actually 500-count Egyptian cotton that’s balled in his fists. Lisa’s warm and breathing next to him; Ben’s down the hall. Slowly his heart rate comes down, settling back into his apple pie life.

It’s been a little more than two months—sixty-seven days actually, but who’s counting—since he’s seen his brother. Sixty-seven days, sixty-seven nightmares. He thought it would be easier by now.

Even thinking his name makes his heart twist in pain. _Sammy_. The kid who was so fucking _good_ that he overcame the literal devil inside his head and leapt into that deep dark pit in the ground. It feels like a century ago; it feels like it was yesterday.

He absently runs his fingers over the scar above his left eyebrow, remembering Satan instead of Sam behind those kaleidoscope eyes he’d been looking into all his life—like Sam’s face was a cheap Halloween mask. He can still hear the fading screams as they plummeted into the earth, before the gaping chasm closed up over them. As it swallowed them up a deeper, more painful one opened in Dean’s chest—that one’s never going to close up.

He pulls himself out of bed, even though it’s still a half hour before the alarm, before he has to get ready for work. _Work_. God, what is he doing? This isn’t him, this fake, half-assed life. He shouldn’t be going to work. He should be beating down the gates of Hell, getting his brother back … but Sam made him promise. He figures he should at least keep the last promise he ever made to his brother. And Lord knows Dean at least needs something to do all day, something to keep him too busy to drink himself into a coma or eat a bullet or dig his way down to Hell with his bare hands.

Lisa stirs at the creak of the mattress as he stands.

“You okay, babe?” she mumbles, voice thick with sleep.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean assures her, even though he’s anything but okay. “It’s only 6:30. Go back to sleep.” She nods and rolls over, and Dean notices the way her breasts press together when she lays on her side, the curve of her hip under the blanket.

It’s certainly not a _bad_ gig—getting to share a bed with a woman like Lisa every night. But as soon as the thought crosses his mind, the guilt moves in. Guilt is his constant state of being these days. Guilt over not finding a way to stop the devil that would’ve kept his brother topside, over not trying to bring Sam back when every fiber of him tells him that he should, over wedging himself into Lisa’s normal life like he could really belong here. Accidentally laughing at late-night sitcom reruns—guilt. Enjoying a cold beer after a long day—guilt. And sex … that’s the worst. They’ve had sex twice since he showed up blubbering on her doorstep, and both times Dean thought he was going to be sick afterwards, could barely breathe under the weight of the his conscience.

He heads downstairs, his bare feet automatically seeking out the cold hard floor of the garage. One of the first things he did when he got here was park the Impala. It was their _home_ ; he couldn’t even look at it without thinking of Sam. It was hard enough when Sam was at Stanford, but at least he was still _alive_. And Dean was mostly fueled by anger then anyway, burning out any sadness he could have felt over it. But now …

Driving it into the garage was bad enough; he’d spent the better part of the next hour on the cement floor beside the still ticking engine, until his knees were numb, his eyes squeezed shut against the tears, his lungs struggling to take in air. He tries not to come back here, but sometimes he just _needs_ to. It’s still home after all.

He runs his hand up under the tarp, against the cool smoothness of that shiny black paint he always took such pride in. He walks around to the back and bends down to lift the cover up over the back bumper. The front’s too hard—if he looks at that empty passenger seat the pain might actually kill him—but the back he can manage. He pops the trunk and lifts the floor, studies their old weapons stash, makes sure everything’s still accounted for. Shotguns and pistols hanging in their place, shiny flasks of holy water stacked with rosaries and crucifixes in the corner, their last bit of holy oil in a terracotta jug, machetes glinting in the sliver of light from the door to the kitchen.

He’s about to close it, he wishes he just would have closed it quick, but his eyes linger and fall on something he hasn’t noticed in a while—the corner of a wooden box sticking out under some old books of Sam’s. Even when he’s opened the trunk in the past two months, he’s purposely avoided looking at this spot, the front right corner where Sam used to stick his stuff.

Dean always used to get pissed because there wasn’t enough room to keep more wooden stakes or silver bullets or whatever bullshit it was that week, but Sam wouldn’t get rid of that stupid wooden box. He started stashing stuff in it when Dad died, adding to it sporadically over the past couple years. Dean gave him a hard time about it, told him it was stupid to keep memories like that, they didn’t have room, they couldn’t afford the emotional attachment. But now he couldn’t be more glad it’s here.

Before he can stop himself, he’s reaching for it. The weight of it feels familiar in his hands; the lid squeaks as he lifts it. Tears blur his vision as he scans the contents—just as he remembers seeing them over Sam’s shoulder. Dad’s old lighter that he’d thought he lost on a ghost hunt, a random deck of cards from poker night at Bobby’s, the foul ball Dean caught at the Cubs game they’d gone to on a whim that one weekend. Faded photos of a lost family, charred at the edges.

His throat feels tight, but he picks up the picture anyway, its jagged edge just visible under a creased picture of Mom. It’s him and Sam sitting at the table in Bobby’s kitchen. He remembers the night Bobby snapped the picture—during Dean’s year before Hell—they’d watched the game on Bobby’s old tube TV with the rabbit ear antenna and gorged on hot wings and beer until they were sick. God they were so naive then—they thought they could still get out of the deal. The were still _smiling_ —pure, happy smiles without any of the extra weight they’d carried in the past couple years. Dean can’t even remember the last time he smiled. He’s not even sure he ever wants to smile again. Just like hunting or driving or fucking _anything_ —it doesn’t count when Sam’s not there to see it anyway. What’s the point?

The picture shakes in his hand, and he realizes he’s actually trembling all over and his legs feel untethered from the rest of his body, barely holding him up. He drops the picture back into the box and snaps the lid shut, drops it on top of Sam’s old books and backs away from the car. He can’t do this. Sometimes being near the Impala feels comforting, but not today. Today it feels like heartache and grief and a smothering darkness that he can never escape.

He barely gets the lid of the trunk shut before he’s lurching forward, his stomach heaving. He drops to his knees knees with a soft thud, pressing his fists into the slick concrete until his knuckles ache. He’s not sure how long he stays that way, but when he looks up again, there’s light coming in through the windows of the garage door. At least he can breathe again.

He needs a drink.

He doesn’t look at the Impala as he tugs the tarp back down, burying the memories of his old life with it. Instead he looks at his faded white pick-up, his fake car for his fake job in his fake life.

He doesn’t know which is worse.

_Every smile, it hurts me just the same_  
_‘Cause I’m sad for all the lost songs_  
_Frame it 'cause it hides the jagged edge_  
_Better than the last one_


End file.
